Let's boil the presidential selection down to one issue, the biggest issue going - the economy. We teeter on the edge of economic disaster. Forget about party affiliations for a minute. Forget about Republicans and Democrats. Forget about political ideology. Forget about Bush. Forget about Congress. Let's just focus on which candidate's policies will do the most to get us out of this mess, and back to prosperity. We only have a choice between these two men to lead us.

First, let's set the grim economic scene. Our government is trying to pass a $700 billion bailout of the financial industry at the taxpayer's expense. Our country is approaching a $10 trillion national debt, soon to be $11 trillion. We have $53 trillion in unfunded entitlement liabilities, with Social Security and Medicare about to overwhelm us financially. We owe $500 billion to the Chinese. The government passed a $150 billion stimulus package this year. We are fighting two wars, which will probably end up costing $1 trillion. We are sending $700 billion per year overseas to meet our energy needs, to countries like Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. Our budget deficits are ballooning to their highest levels ever. In the financial crisis, we have already spent $29 billion to buy the bad paper from Bear Stearns. We paid $85 billion for 80 percent of the insurance company, AIG. We're paying $200-300 billion to bail out and nationalize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) is proposing a second stimulus package, with a price tag of $65 billion. The House Of Representatives just passed a spending bill for $630 billion that contains $25 billion in loans to the automakers, along with 2,322 earmarks that total $8.8 billion. We are spending money at a staggering and unprecedented rate, and we don't really have any assurances that all the spent money will reverse our financial problems. Fiscal insanity has run rampant. This is big government on steroids, and it's scaring the heck out of me. It should scare you too. I've never witnessed anything like this in my lifetime. It HAS to stop.

Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX) sometimes seems like an island of sanity crying out in the middle of an ocean of lunacy. That's what I thought when I heard Paul talking about the current financial crisis and the bailout plan. Paul says the bailout amounts to nothing but propping up the same failed policies and systems that brought us to where we are today. It's hard not to agree with him:

The scope of the mortgage bailout bill is limited in only two ways - 1) The Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Paulson, has a spending limit of $700 billion in buying up bad loans from the mortgage companies (not that he couldn't ask for more later), and 2) the bailout lasts for a period of two years.

Hey America, how do you like your brand new insurance company, AIG ? We bought an 80% stake in that company for the bargain price of $85 billion. How about your nifty new mortgage companies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac ? They've been nationalized. They belong to all of us now. Who knew this was what Bush was talking about when he advocated an "ownership society" ? Bailing out the financial industry might end up costing us a a trillion or two, but no worries, it's only money. YOUR money, make no mistake about that, but what's a few trillion among friends ?

Barack Obama refers to "failed Bush-McCain policies" so often that I think he may have a kind of Bush Tourette's Syndrome. No matter what the issue is, Obama blames Bush and his separated-at-birth twin brother John McCain. Yesterday's e-mail from the Obama campaign was no different:

Both of our presidential candidates supported the government takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Both of our presidential candidates now think Fannie and Freddie need to be restructured and monitored.

There is a Barack Obama television ad that criticizes John McCain for giving tax breaks to corporations. It's one of those with the very dire, serious announcer, who warns you of the impending doom of voting for McCain (most political ads have that 'impending doom' tone, don't they ?). The announcer says:

The Troopergate investigation was launched to determine whether or not Alaska Governor Sarah Palin(R) abused the power of her office by firing Alaska Safety Commissioner Walt Moneghan. The Safety Commissioner serves at the pleasure of the Governor, so Palin is allowed to hire and fire whomever she pleases for the job, but allegations have been made that Palin fired Moneghan because Moneghan refused to fire Palin's ex-brother-in-law, Alaska State Trooper Mike Wooten. Palin claims she fired Moneghan over budgetary matters and to move the department in a new direction. The investigation pre-dates John McCain's selection of Palin as his Republican Vice Presidential nominee, but is quickly becoming a political football as the presidential election nears.

Moneghan told the Anchorage Daily News on August 30 that nobody ever told him to fire Wooten. He said, "For the record, no one has ever said fire Wooten. Not the governor. Not Todd. Not any of the other staff.”

Democrats know Sarah Palin is the least qualified Vice Presidential candidate in history. Her experience is limited to four years on the Wasilla, Alaska city council, eight years as mayor of Wasilla, two years on the Alaska Oil And Gas Conservation Commission, and nearly two years as governor of Alaska.

Outrageous. If McCain wasn't a computer illiterate, as a recent Obama ad points out, I'd send him an angry e-mail (then again, maybe the Obama people might have mentioned in that ad that McCain's war injuries make it very difficult for him to type at a keyboard. When McCain surfs the web, someone else does the typing for him. Funny how the Obama people left that part out).

"Governor, let me start by asking you a question that I asked John McCain about you, and it is really the central question. Can you look the country in the eye and say "I have the experience and I have the ability to be not just vice president, but perhaps president of the United States of America?"" and"...didn't say to yourself, "Am I experienced enough? Am I ready? Do I know enough about international affairs? Do I -- will I feel comfortable enough on the national stage to do this?"" and"Didn't that take some hubris? [to run for VP]" and "When I asked John McCain about your national security credentials, he cited the fact that you have commanded the Alaskan National Guard and that Alaska is close to Russia. Are those sufficient credentials?" and "I'm just saying that national security is a whole lot more than energy". and"Did you ever travel outside the country prior to your trip to Kuwait and Germany last year?" and"Have you ever met a foreign head of state?"

At this point, I'm wondering if we we'll hear another true word from the mainstream media about Sarah Palin, or even John McCain, until election day. They are in full attack mode, fearing that their wunderkind Obama might (shiver) lose the election, leaving America stuck in the seventh circle of hell (also known as 'non-government dependence'). They're like rabid dogs trapped in a corner by animal control, foaming at the mouth and ready to lash out at any moment. Now, in their bloodlust to bring down Palin, they are attacking the very voters Barack Obama is attempting to woo, the middle class and small towns across America.

In a Michael Kinsley hit piece on Palin for Time, called Alaskanomics, which Yahoo put up on it's home page to maximize exposure, Kinsley starts with this:

I'm on the campaign mailing lists of both John McCain and Barack Obama, and let me tell you, the Obama people characterize almost everything Republicans say as a personal attack against Obama (rather ironic when you consider how the Democratic-led media has attacked Sarah Palin and her family recently, and probably attack Bush even in their sleep). The Obama campaign is unbelievably thin-skinned. They think the GOP smeared them horribly during the Republican National Convention. Let me post some of the following Republican Convention "smears", which most people would call "facts", just to set the record straight.

Last night, GOVERNOR Sarah Palin (R-Al) and others delivered an uppercut to the chin of the liberal media, an overhand right to the jaw of Barack Obama, and outlined a clear vision for the future, a future that says 'no thank you' to the intrusive iron hand of a burdensome Big Brother bureaucracy, aka, the federal government under an Obama administration.

Since Democrats and the mainstream media have awakened at long last to the notion that experience is important for a president, where before they were mesmerized by the audacious word 'CHANGE', CNN's Anderson Cooper actually asked Barack Obama about his experience (and to think, it only took 18 months or so into the campaign). Obama's answer is WAY revealing. Here's the exchange:

Michael Moore-on said hurricane Gustav making landfall yesterday right as the Republican National Convention was starting proved there was a god in heaven. He said this on the Keith Olbermann Propaganda Hour. Ubermoron grinned in response, finding it quite humorous and neat that Gustav, which had already killed around 70 people in Cuba and was threatening to repeat the devastation Katrina wrought in 2005, would interfere with Republican plans. Hi-lar-ious, morons. Former DNC chairman Donnie Fowler was caught on camera expressing the same sentiments, completing the moron trifecta.